Hurray for brackets [ ]

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Benjamin Barrett
> Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 10:23 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: FW: Hurray for brackets [ ]
>
> Why, I wonder, does the Associated Press still use parentheses
> in instances where brackets are called for?  My two-bit theory
> is that this originates from the days when AP stories were transmitted
> to newspapers by teletype (telex), which had a character set of only 32
> characters and did not include the bracket characters "[" and "]" but only
> the left and right parentheses "(" and ")", as explained here:
>
> http://nemesis.lonestar.org/reference/telecom/codes/baudot.html
>

The AP Stylebook gives precisely this reason for not using brackets. It is
because they "cannot be transmitted over newswires."

Switching to a more modern system is probably not entirely up to AP. Their
clients have to be able to receive the news and not all parts of the world
are wired to the internet as the US is. Germany, for example, still uses
Telex heavily for all sorts of business communication. Also, Telex can be
sent by short wave radio, making it an efficient broadcast system over
extremely long distances. I'm sure the switch will happen, but there are
reasons for retaining the old system for a while.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net